


There was a child

by thejollysailor



Series: Burglaress - fem!Bilbo prompts and stories [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Adults not talking about their problems therefore causing more damage than there were to start with, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Childbirth, F/M, Genderbending, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, fem!Bilbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejollysailor/pseuds/thejollysailor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billa miscarries in Laketown</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to continue with this story afterall. 
> 
> Previously found[here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1022443/chapters/2057774)

Billa has just opened the last barrel and helped poor Ori out of it, when she first feels the pain. The pain is a cramping one, coming from her abdomen and Billa’s knees nearly go out with the intensity of it. She manages to grab a hold of the now empty barrel, and the pain stills for a moment only to be replaced by a much fiercer one, which sends Billa to her knees. It reminds her of the pains she would have when she had her bleedings in her tween-years, but much fiercer. She wonders if that is what is happening; she has not had her bleedings for a two months but she had not given it much thought. She had been sleep deprived, on the brink of starvation and constantly fearful of discovery from the Elvenking’s guards.  
None of the dwarves seems to notice that she is sitting in the water, clutching at her cramping stomach, until Bofur calls out for her.

“Billa? Where are you? Where is Billa? Where is the hobbit?” he calls, his voice rising as his search becomes more frantic.

Billa realises that she must be hidden from view by the large barrel. She desperately tries to get up, but her knees refuse to cooperate. Instead she opts for crying out for her companions.

She only has to cry out Bofur’s name once, before she hears the sound of feet dragging themselves through water. Bofur appears in front of her, hat askew, clothes drenched, and eyes fixed first on her face, then in the water around her. His face looks horrified, and Billa looks down at the water in between her thighs. The water that is red with blood, her blood.

 

She takes one last look up at Bofur before passing out.

 

 

Kíli nervously watches Fíli as his brother paces the hallway. He has tried talking to him, but Fíli seemed deaf to his suggestions of food and rest. He had not been sitting down for more than a minute at a time, and he occasionally stopped his pacing to hide his face in his hands and muttering some blurred sentences in Khuzdul. Kíli wanted to reach out for him, to embrace his brother and comfort him but he does not know if Fíli would appreciate it.

The door opens, and Oin steps out, wiping his hands on an already blood-stained cloth. Fíli shoots up from the seat he had taken only a minute ago.  
“Is she alright? Can I see her? Is Billa all right? Answer me, please?”

Oin places a hand on Fíli’s shoulder and quiets him.

“She’ll be fine, lad. The bleeding has stopped, and she’ll need a few weeks of rest before she can continue travelling.”

Fíli looks relieved for a moment, before he frowns again.

“The bleeding? Where is she hurt Oin? Tell me!” he says, his voice becoming more and more desperate. Oin opens his mouth to say something, but cut himself off. An uneasy feeling spreads in Kíli’s stomach.

“Oin. Tell me.” Fíli says and his voice is so low and quiet and so like Thorin’s that Kíli almost expects to see his uncle standing in the doorway. Oin takes a deep breath and looks Fíli right in the eyes. His hold on Fíli’s shoulder tighten for a moment.

 

“Lad… there was a child.”

 

 

The first she feels when she wakes up is a dull pain in her abdomen and a rawness in between her legs. Then she feels a cool hand on her forehead and someone is whispering her name. She tries to open her eyes but her lashes feel glued together. She tries to shift on the soft mattress but lets out a small whimper when a sharp pain shoots up her spine. The voice continues to whisper her name and sweet nothings, while stroking her hair.

“M’eyes. Can’t open…” she whispers hoarsely, and the stroking hand leaves her hair only to return with a damp cloth that he runs over her closed eyes. She gently attempts to open them again, and this time they crack open to reveal Fíli bending over her. As her eyes adjust to the gentle lighting in the room she notices that his eyes are red-rimmed and his hair in disarray. She smiles weakly up at him, thankful for his concern. She sees tears well up in Fíli’s eyes, but he quickly blink them away and take her hand.

“How are you feeling, my sweet?”

Billa shrugs, or tries to shrug but her entire body feels so thoroughly sore that she can barely lift her arm.

“I’m fine. It hurts though. Especially… well..” she glances awkwardly down at her thighs, and she sees Fíli wince beside her. She frowns.

“Fíli… what is the matter? What happened?” she asks, frown deepening when tears starts to run down Fíli’s cheeks. He takes a deep breath and steels himself, takes a gentle hold of both of her hands and looks into her eyes. The heartbreak Billa sees there nearly punches the air out of her. Then Fíli begins to explain.

 

_“There was a child.”_


	2. Chapter 2

The first time they had lain together had been at Beorn’s home. Billa had slipped into his room in the middle of the night when Fíli was already sleeping and sat down on the bed next to him. He had shot up, already reaching for the dagger on the too tall chair next to the bed when he realised he was not under attack. He had tried to cover himself with the duvet that had somehow tangled itself around his lower body and sit up but she had reached out to still his hands and pushed him back into the mattress. He had frowned and mumbled, but her lips suddenly pressing against his cut whatever objections he might have made off. The kiss was chaste and dry, and Fíli had only frowned harder when she pulled back and sat up on her knees next to him and pulled off the thin shift she was clad in. Fíli’s breath had caught in his throat as he ran his eyes over her naked form. His eyes rested shortly on her breast and he had felt an itch in his fingers to reach out and cup them, but he forced himself to turn his gaze back to her face. He had been about to object, to make an excuse; he was the heir, he could not, no matter how much he wished too and had their circumstances been different he might have considered. Then Billa had raised her eyebrows and put one of her tiny fingers over his lips.

“If you throw me out now I will be very cross with you.”

And then she had kissed him again, and pressed her small body to Fíli’s own and really, who was he to bring distress to their burglar?

 

 

She looks so different now, pale and with dead eyes red from sobbing. She has not said a word since she stopped screaming, and Fíli is almost thankful for it for he cannot think of anything that might bring her comfort, he knows very well that nothing can. Her hands is pressed absentmindedly against her lower stomach, where the babe (Mahal, their child, their treasure that none of them knew about) had rested only hours before.

When he had first told her, she had been so still and quiet that Fíli thought that she might not have heard him. But then she had started to sob, and then that had turned into screaming and Fíli had tried to hold her, to comfort her but she had banged her tiny fists against his chest and screamed and screamed. Fíli did not know how much time passed before her screaming just turned into an endless stream of ‘ _nonononoitcannotbepleasepleaseiamsosorry_ ’ and she had exhausted herself so much that she fell asleep in his arms, tears and snot streaming down her face even in sleep.

Thorin had been to see her to, although he barely stepped inside the room. He only stood in the doorway before shaking his head while resting a heavy hand on Fíli’s shoulder. Then he had left. Fíli knows that his uncle would never stoop so low as to actually taunt him and tell him: ‘what did I say?’ but he could feel it in his uncles gaze, had always been able to feel it ever since the company had learned that he had bedded Billa.

_You are an heir of Durin, you cannot just take to bed with anyone! She has nothing to offer you, and neither you her! **Nothing good will come from it, you wait and see.**_

He had screamed at his uncle to leave him alone, this was his decision, wasn’t he allowed to have anything for himself, he could bed anyone as long as they were willing. Thorin had let the matter go with a shake of his head.

His uncle had been right, nothing good had come from his and Billa’s nightly liaisons ( _liar_ , his mind whispers, _you love her, you have always done so, even if you did not realise it was love_ , _ever since she opened her door to you_ ). The only good thing that could have no longer exists. It had been buried; the bloody remains of what would have been his first child. He had dug the hole himself, when Billa had been sleeping and Dori had been there to wipe the sweat of her brow.

Looking at Billa now, so fragile, so broken, he cannot help but blame himself. Had he not given in, had he not let his heart fall ( _it had already fallen long before you took her into your bed_ , his mind whispers), had he only been able to protect her and their unborn child. But he hadn’t and now he has to live with the result.

 

 

“It’s beautiful,” Billa had whispered as she lay naked in his arms and admired the dagger that he had just gifted her, “though I cannot see why I need it. I already have a sword.”  
“S’not a sword, it’s a letter opener.” Fíli had muttered and Billa had hit him playfully on the arm. He had tickled her side in response and soon she was lying underneath him, wriggling and squealing. “No Fíli, no stop!” she had cried and he had kissed her, deeply and rested his forehead against hers.  
“Please, just take the dagger. I want you to be able to protect yourself, if I cannot be there to do it.”  
She had smiled and caressed his cheek and kissed him again.  
“I always protect what is _mine_.” He had whispered. 


	3. Chapter 3

Billa has never felt so empty. There is an emptiness in her body where her child used to be and an emptiness in her heart, a cold that no words of comfort can dispel. It is strange; she had not been aware of the child growing within her until it was gone, and yet she feels like someone has torn a vital part of her body out of her, leaving a raw, gaping wound that simply will not go away. She has cried so many tears; she does not think there are any left.

She tries to tell Fíli that it is not his fault, but he will not listen; he is a dwarf, a creature of pride and it is easy for her to see that Fíli feels shameful for what happened. It makes her want to shake her head. Neither of them had known that she had been with child and there was nothing he could have done to save the life that neither was aware had been growing within her. Yet Fíli blames himself, lists a hundred of things he could have done differently to no avail.

She receives visits from all the members of the company. They seem to have gotten the same idea as Fíli that they could somehow have prevented what happened. She tries to tell them the same as Fíli, but the guilt never truly leaves their eyes and it makes her want to scream, she wish she could reach into their very souls and snatch it away before it eats them all up. She has to stop herself from falling into the same sea of guilt and shame that the others have launched themselves head first into, though a treacherous corner of her mind keeps whispering that it is her fault. It is in her blood, the failure, the inability to carry a child.

Some of Billa’s earliest childhood memories were of bloodied sheets on her mother’s bed, of pregnancies ending before they were meant to and empty rooms meant for children that never lived to use them. She remembers her mother’s pale and quiet demeanour, and wonders how she lived through it so many times when Billa feels like she might never recover after having experienced it once. Another part of her mind, the one that Billa knows she should listen to, tells her that it is not her fault: that it was a miracle that the child survived through near starvation, exhaustion and constant stress.

She has to be strong, like her mother. She has to rise again, she has to help Fíli who grows more and more hollow with each day that passes, even if she feels just as hollow and want nothing more than to lie down and cry, and clutch at her stomach and wonder of what might have been. Would they have been strong, her child? Of course they would, they were of the line of Durin and a Baggins and a Took too; they would have been brave and bold, just like their father, with hair like gold and eyes the colour of the midday sky.

No, she cannot dwell on that. On the fourteenth day since their arrival in Laketown, she rises from her bed and asks one of the serving wenches that has been put at the company’s disposal to draw a bath. She stopped bleeding days ago and Oin had declared her well enough to get up two days ago. Billa can still feel the nagging pain in her nether regions but it is not worse than those she usually get during her monthlies.

She takes a deep breath before entering the kitchen where she knows the rest of the company is waiting. Now that she is well enough to travel she knows that they will not linger in Laketown much longer. Soon they will continue their journey towards the mountain and the dragon waiting there. She used to be terrified of the mere thought of the dragon Smaug but a cold has settled in her heart, one that does not disappear by thoughts of earthly terrors like dragons. One that has settled deep within her, one that helps her to comfort others when she cannot comfort herself, a cold that allows her to keep up appearances.

_The cold of a mother that never was._


	4. Chapter 4

They leave Laketown three days later. The company keeps their distance from Billa; they are not unkind or cool in their behaviour, but nobody mention what happened upon their arrival in Laketown. Billa does not know whether she actually wants them to, but their refusal to as much to speak of what had happened saddens Billa; she is unable to speak out about it herself, afraid that she might break the fragile peace that has fallen over the company after the accident. She endures their respectful distance, and keeps up appearances; the wound in her is far from healed and she does not think that it will anytime soon, but it has stopped the open bleeding and as long as the company do not see that she is ripping apart at the seams, she can pretend. _I have to be strong, for all of them._

Billa has not truly spoken with Fíli since they left Laketown, nor does she feel that they had actually spoken before that. It is with him as it is with the rest of the company; she does not dare roll away the bandage and expose the wound, and so she cannot find out how deep it actually is. She sees the lines of sorrow around Fíli’s eyes and swears that if she could only diminish them she would do anything.   
She knows that Fíli tries to keep up appearances as hard as she does; she can feel Thorin wait for their relationship to rip apart, wait for the cut that the miscarriage have caused to slowly tear until they are two separate parts, torn and frayed by tragedy and broken love. Billa knows how stubborn Fíli can be, even if he appears patient to others, knows how he does not want his uncle to be proved right about them. Dwarven love is supposed to be strong and everlasting, but theirs is slowly dying out and Fíli would rather lose an eye than admit that his love for her was only a fleeting one that could not survive the tragedy that they have suffered. He stubbornly walks beside her during the day, and he sleeps with his arms wrapped around her at night in a kind of demonstrative way: _you see uncle, I still love her, you were wrong, you were wrong._

The second night they spend camping outside what Thorin believes to be the position of the Hidden Door, Fíli lies next to her. He takes her hand and presses it against his groin, and she feels a hardness there and understand. He looks into her eyes with a pleading look, and her heart melt a little bit: perhaps there is still hope, perhaps they can still save what is left of their love. So she smiles weakly at him and nods.

When he lies spent on top of her afterwards, his face buried in the crook of her neck, silently sobbing, his shoulders shaking and tense, she lies and gazes up at the sky, tears falling silently down her cheeks. The hope she had felt only minutes before slowly vanishes as the tears fall down to land on Fíli’s hair. She curses herself for ever crawling into his bed, curses herself for ever having fallen in love with him and curses herself for having caused him so much heartache.

_I caused this, I broke him, I lost his child. It is all my fault._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with this (short) chapter. I honestly wanted to take this story in a more positive direction but it is as if everything I write turns even angstier than it was meant to be.


	5. Chapter 5

She first notices when she and Gandalf stays at Beorn’s house but does not dare say a word to anyone: she tries to tell herself that it is because of the strange diet that Beorn prefers, but she stops drinking the strong ale served in the evening as a precaution.   
When she has thrown up every morning for two weeks, she decides to tell Gandalf, who scolds her for not telling him sooner and then tells her to pack up and make her goodbyes, so that they can head for Rivendell immediately.  
The journey across the Misty Mountains is strange and dreamlike, and Billa does not remember much of it once they have arrived safely in the Hidden Valley. She had spent the entire journey worried sick that something might happen to the little life that she still cannot quite fathom is growing inside her.

(Her dreams are still plagued by images of bloodied sheets, a voice calling her name, blue eyes filled with tears and she wakes up with her arms folded around her belly, sweating, and feeling so _empty_ ).

 

                                                                                                              *

 

Lord Elrond informs her that her child is well, but that she must rest. He urges her to stop worrying for her yet unborn child, that it will only stress the child and herself to constantly think of all the things that could go wrong. He puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and tells her that what happened in Laketown was not her fault. How he even found out, Billa does not know, she does not recall telling him herself. Perhaps Gandalf, who has now gone away on some business to the south, had told him upon their arrival, when she had been exhausted and silently begging that the child inside of her would not meet the same end as the last one.  
 _(She does not think she could bear it, she have already lost so much, so many, so much blood has been spilled and she cannot convince herself that it is not her fault)._  
  


                                                                                                               *  
  


The remaining months of her pregnancy passes in a blur, and yet Billa feels that it has lasted for a thousand years. She feels tired, so tired, no matter how much she rests and she cannot stop thinking of Fíli and of their unborn children, both the one that died and the one that still lives. The image of Fíli, with black circles around dull eyes and golden hair in disarray and such sorrow in his eyes, will not leave her; it is there every time she closes her eyes. She wonders what he would think of her now, what he would say to her, how he would act if he knew what she carried underneath her heart and then she berates herself for letting her mind wander that way. That it is foolish of her to daydream of things that will never be, that _can_ never be.

Then, one morning she wakes to a pain in her abdomen, one that is both painfully familiar and so entirely different. She pulls the thin duvet aside and for a moment, she expects to see blood on the sheets and in between her thighs. But there is nothing there, apart from an odd sort of wetness and Billa tries to push herself up in a sitting position and reach for the string that hangs next to the bed, but her large belly makes it nearly impossible and she retorts to yelling out for help.  
Soon her room is filled with elves that stand calmly around her, talking in hushed, gentle tones. They must create a stark contrast to her, Billa thinks, as she lies there sweating, screaming and crying. It makes her feel strangely angry, how they can just stand there, calm, collected and perfectly poised when she is lying here in pain. She is just about to yell something not very flattering at the elven healer who is trying to make her drink some potion, presumably for the pain when a tormenting pain rips through her body, and then all she can do is breathe and push, breathe and push, breathebreathebreathe.

_(I cannot do it. Yes you can, see you are almost there, just one more push. I cannot, I cannot, please. It will be over soon, I promise, just push.)_  
  


                                                                                                                *  
  


The child in her arms is small, red-faced, and screaming and yet Billa has never seen anything so beautiful. She can barely comprehend that it is actually her child, the one that grew inside of her, the one that she was so afraid of losing.  
Her daughter’s eyes are blue, the elven healer tells her that so are most new-borns, but she knows that they will stay that way, that her daughter will have her father’s eyes. Her nose is small like Billa’s own, but she has a strong dwarfish jaw and she sees so much of Fíli in her little child that it feels her heart might burst with the sadness and unfairness of it all.  
She weeps for Fíli who will never holds his daughter in his arms, whose heart she will never see mend from the loss of an unborn child and whose love she will never feel again. Who lies dead in the cold stone beneath a mountain he barely lived long enough to call his home. She weeps for Kíli, who will never get to play with his niece or have children of his own that her own daughter would call cousins. But mostly she weeps for her daughter who will never know her father in person, who will have to make do with the stories her mother can tell her, who will have to endure the scorn of her mother’s relation who will never understand, could never understand how precious she is. Who will never know, can never know, who she truly is, if she is to be kept safe. Who will be hidden away, not by force but by her mother’s choice because she does not dare think of the complications if she should reveal the child to her paternal family.  
  
(She has considered writing someone from the company, but decided against it. They can never know, she could never go back. She feels so hopeless because she cannot go back to who she was, not fully, but neither could she leave her homeland behind and go back to the mountain, to live within the same stonewalls where her love lies dead and cold. Where all that matters is politics, pride and blood and where she might see her daughter be used as a pawn in a game she was never meant to play. The last true heir of Durin, a perfect figurehead for ambitious people who would use her to gain power. She cannot allow that, she has to protect her.)  
  
The child makes a tiny noise and squirms in Billa’s arms and suddenly she does not feel as hopeless as she did before. She dries away her own tears that had unknowingly landed on her daughters hairless head. She will endure whatever malicious whispers her neighbours and relatives in Hobbitton might offer, she will tell her child of her father, of how kind and brave he was, and how much he would have loved her. And in time, she will tell her of her own journey and how Billa wished that it might have ended differently, of who she truly is and why it was so important to keep her safe.  
There is a child, and Billa will do what she can to protect it. 

 

_Fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was so emotionally draining for me to write since one of my oldest friends actually gave birth to a stillborn girl last week, right as I was starting to write this. This might explain why it all got a little messy, there was a lot that I wanted to go in this chapter and the execution might not be very elegant. Sorry.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting on this fic!
> 
> EDIT: I made an alternative ending for this fic it can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1064659/)


End file.
